Posted on Jun 2, 2010

NEW ORLEANS—The anger is palpable across the Mississippi Delta. As the Deepwater Horizon oil geyser, almost a mile underwater, continues unabated, the brunt of this, the largest environmental catastrophe in United States history, is rolling onto the coast, impacting the ecology, the economy and entire ways of life.

I traveled across the bayous and towns of coastal Louisiana for four days, meeting the people on the front lines of the onrush of BP’s oil slick. They are angry, out of work and read the papers about people getting sick.

One person, whose job remains intact—at least so far—is BP’s CEO, Tony Hayward. Hayward, who was paid more than $4.5 million in 2009, lamented Sunday: “There’s no one who wants this thing over more than I do. You know, I’d like my life back.” Hayward becomes more vilified with almost each of his utterances, which are clearly aimed at minimizing the perceived impact of the BP disaster. He will probably be increasingly guarded in his remarks, as U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder just toured the area and, in a public statement, said: “We must also ensure that anyone found responsible for this spill is held accountable. That means enforcing the appropriate civil—and if warranted, criminal—authorities to the full extent of the law.”

On Grand Isle, we met Dean Blanchard, who owns the largest shrimp business in the area. He took us out on his boat, where he expressed his strong feelings about President Barack Obama: “I thought he was a man of the people, that he would’ve come out and met the businesses that are suffering, and look at us, and tell us, give us a little assurance that he would help us, but he just hid by the Coast Guard station like all the other presidents.” Blanchard’s parents and grandparents were shrimpers. With his strong Cajun accent, he explained the effect of the tides on the oil:

“I made my living off of watching tides. We hunt shrimp. You can’t see a shrimp. You know how we know where the shrimp’s at? Because of the tides. When the tide goes out, the more water goes out, the more water comes back, and when it comes back, it brings everything with it. It usually brings the shrimp, but this time it’s going to be bringing the oil.”

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Blanchard says fishermen are like farmers: “We lose money in January, February, March and April, preparing to harvest our crop in May, June and July. So we spend a lot of money preparing to get to May.” When the Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, thousands of fisherfolk, their families, and the businesses and communities that depend on them saw their annual income disappear, with bleak prospects.

Many shrimp-boat owners have now been hired by BP to work on the cleanup. One local fisherman, John Wunstell Jr., was rushed to the hospital with respiratory problems that he attributed to the noxious environment.

He and others claim BP has prohibited the use of masks, and he has filed a request for an injunction to force BP to provide masks and other protective gear to cleanup workers. The response of BP’s Hayward? “I’m sure they were genuinely ill, but whether it was anything to do with dispersants and oil, whether it was food poisoning or some other reason for them being ill. ... It’s one of the big issues of keeping the army operating. You know, armies march on their stomachs.”

Blanchard was enraged. Why, he asked, did BP confiscate the clothing of their workers once they donned hospital gowns? He said: “I don’t think you need people’s clothes to test for food poisoning. You’d only need people’s clothes to test for chemical poisoning.”

Blanchard took us out into the Gulf to see the skimming operations. None of the boat owners would talk to us. Blanchard explained, “They’re scared to talk, and they’re scared to be seen, because BP has threatened them that if they talk to the media, they’re going to be fired.”

One fisherman, Glenn Swift, whom we met in Buras, La., confirmed that he signed a contract with a clause stating that speaking to the media was grounds for termination. When I asked him why, then, he was talking to me, he said: “I don’t feel it’s the right thing to shut somebody up. We’re supposed to live in the United States, and we’re supposed to have freedom of speech.”

Down the road from Blanchard, a family has erected 101 crosses in their front yard, each one commemorating something they love, like “brown pelicans,” “beach sunsets” and “sand between the toes.” The sign next to the cemetery of dreams reads, “In memory of all that is lost, courtesy of BP and our federal government.”

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 800 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.

Stop Gulf Oil Flow!
The base of the wellhead is leaking because the bore hole pipe is ruptured deep into the hole. The oil appears in cracks on the sea floor around the wellhead, which proves that the well pipe is ruptured below it.

Plugging the BOP will only increase the pressure on the ruptured pipe below it and will not stop the flow.

The simple solution, using known heavy marine pile driving technology, is to lower a 4’ pipe over the BOP and wellhead and drive the piling 200’ into the sea floor which would seal the bore hole and the ruptured pipe deep into sea floor.

Cement would cap the pressure and gas flow and the piling would be cut off far below the water surface for a permanent seal. The same piling and procedure could be used to seal multiple oil leaks.

It would take 83 sections of welded 60’ pipe and 76 valves to get to 5,000 feet in depth and could be accomplished in a few days. The engineering problems of Hydrostatic Pressure in the open pipe and Atmospheric Pressure in depth are controlled with the valves.

Think of the ocean as a great pressure tank and the deeper you go, the more pressure you have. No one has ever lowered an open pipe down into deep (147 atmospheres). When they do, it will be discovered that the ocean is the source for the greatest (hydrostatic) hydroelectric renewable energy on earth. Renewable energy is free energy and Big Oil doesn’t want it.

What we are witnessing is the end product of an attitude toward life and the exploitation of the planet. As I watch the red oil bleeding from a mile down beneath the Gulf waters, it’s as if we are draining the life’s blood of the planet. It’s as if the Earth is bleeding.

No one knows for sure what created this oil that has been hidden 18,000 feet below the sea floor. Some say it is the result of carbon based life forms from millions of years ago. However, some scientists believe that this liquid carbon may be a natural part of the Earth’s evolution independent of dead or decayed organic life forms. It may be in fact act as a lubricant in plate tectonics.

Those who see the planet in holistic terms, such as the systems approach to the study of life, see the Earth as a living entity, with each part sustaining the living entity of the whole, similar to the way our body cells all work together to sustain us. The Native Americans instinctively felt this, and saw themselves as part of the whole, not separate from it. The plains Indians such as the Lakota, thanked their heavenly father for the buffalo, which sustained their every need, especially through the harsh winter. They prayed over the dead buffalo and thanked it as a brother for the sustenance it gave them. They respected it, saw the spirit in it, and did not slaughter it indiscriminately for its hide alone the way the white man did. They took and used what Mother Earth offered, not for exploitive purposes to buy and sell or for profit, but moderately and modestly for their own consumption and survival.

Only Western man had the concept of land ownership, and the exploitation of the Earth’s resources for profit. Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” attests to this, as well as the creation of the New York Stock Exchange shortly after our Revolutionary War. We made treaties with the Native Americans which we violated as soon as gold was discovered in the sacred Black Hills of the Dakotas. The massacres at Sand Creek by Chivington, and the Washita by Custer, as well as Wounded Knee, and the Trail Of Tears, attest to this being the norm rather than isolated incidents.

In order to further exploit the natural resources of the New World, they would exploit people as well by bringing slaves here from Africa. This exploitation enabled them to sell their cotton and textiles on the market cheaper than anyone else and still make a substantial profit.

Slavery is even more prevalent today in the New World Order of Globalization. It takes the form of cheap labor barely above subsistence levels in such countries as China, India, and South East Asia. Children work in sweat shops to make tennis shoes and clothes that Americans can buy cheaply. This gives corporations a profit margin 100 to 1000 times what it costs to produce. It allows our workers who have been stripped of their rights to collective bargaining and unions, working at minimum wage to make these purchases, mostly on credit.

The destruction of the Middle Class and a lower standard of living is the end product Globalization. The American poor get poorer while a handful (the upper 1% that make as much as 95% of the population) get rich. This is happening in India and China as well. Our corporations relocate there because they have no environmental or child labor laws to worry about.

This resevoir must be huge, and this bleeding could go on for a long time since it is under the pressure of almost a mile of water. What happens to the empty space once all the oil has left?

What we are witnessing is the end product of an attitude toward life and the exploitation of the planet. As I watch the red oil bleeding from a mile down beneath the Gulf waters, it’s as if we are draining the life’s blood of the planet. It’s as if the Earth is bleeding.

No one knows for sure what created this oil that has been hidden 18,000 feet below the sea floor. Some say it is the result of carbon based life forms from millions of years ago. However, some scientists believe that this liquid carbon may be a natural part of the Earth’s evolution independent of dead or decayed organic life forms. It may be in fact act as a lubricant in plate tectonics.

Those who see the planet in holistic terms, such as the systems approach to the study of life, see the Earth as a living entity, with each part sustaining the living entity of the whole, similar to the way our body cells all work together to sustain us. The Native Americans instinctively felt this, and saw themselves as part of the whole, not separate from it. The plains Indians such as the Lakota, thanked their heavenly father for the buffalo, which sustained their every need, especially through the harsh winter. They prayed over the dead buffalo and thanked it as a brother for the sustenance it gave them. They respected it, saw the spirit in it, and did not slaughter it indiscriminately for its hide alone the way the white man did. They took and used what Mother Earth offered, not for exploitive purposes to buy and sell or for profit, but moderately and modestly for their own consumption and survival.

Only Western man had the concept of land ownership, and the exploitation of the Earth’s resources for profit. Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” attests to this, as well as the creation of the New York Stock Exchange shortly after our Revolutionary War. We made treaties with the Native Americans which we violated as soon as gold was discovered in the sacred Black Hills of the Dakotas. The massacres at Sand Creek by Chivington, and the Washita by Custer, as well as Wounded Knee, and the Trail Of Tears, attest to this being the norm rather than isolated incidents.

In order to further exploit the natural resources of the New World, they would exploit people as well by bringing slaves here from Africa. This exploitation enabled them to sell their cotton and textiles on the market cheaper than anyone else and still make a substantial profit.

Slavery is even more prevalent today in the New World Order of Globalization. It takes the form of cheap labor barely above subsistence levels in such countries as China, India, and South East Asia. Children work in sweat shops to make tennis shoes and clothes that Americans can buy cheaply. This gives corporations a profit margin 100 to 1000 times what it costs to produce. It allows our workers who have been stripped of their rights to collective bargaining and unions, working at minimum wage to make these purchases, mostly on credit.

The destruction of the Middle Class and a lower standard of living is the end product Globalization. The American poor get poorer while a handful (the upper 1% that make as much as 95% of the population) get rich. This is happening in India and China as well. Our corporations relocate there because they have no environmental or child labor laws to worry about.

Observations by posters about the Niger are revealing. If it’s out of sight it’s for the most part out of our often misinformed and manipulated minds. And, knowing about it doesn’t mean we have the power or will to do anything about it. Besides, most of us are financially and emotionally beaten to the edge of despair. We feel responsible and want better policy on a number of issues but our leadership has become hollow, evil and corrupt. This betrayal enrages us but we turn the rage against ourselves. This creates a political depression and hopelessness that holds us in thrall. We feel guilt and responsibility yet remain powerless and confused. That’s always the result of having come in contact with the emotional/psychic vampire. Do you believe that they aren’t psychopathic megalomaniacal narcissists? They are monsters!!

I’m willing to be that the large majority of the people crying about the “Federal Government” and thier failings in this most recent fiasco, are the same “tea bag” idiots who want a “smaller government” that does not “interfere” in people’s lives. The hypocrisy spilling out of them dwarfs the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

All of this is inanity and the biggest problem is the huge number
of humans on this planet, ~ 7,000,000,000 worth AND the
religious fervor of belief that all humans must not die (and is
aided and abetted by the aristocracy government) which
according to far too many dunderheads is way too ‘unnatural’.

And somehow monsanto or any of the other genetically
modifying corporate groups will manage to save and sustain this
burgeoning people population. So we have what? Actually the
biggest bunch of inanity that will crash everything, causing an
e.l.e.(extinction level event) that is even now slowly creeping up
on all life on this planet, hell may even kill all the cock roaches
too.

We have tried to live the ‘Gilded Age style lassiez faire
economics’ as such that it is and have even managed to get this
far but not to worry, all those little nagging negative effects are
still accumulating and as in Murphy’s Law, they will seek out the
proper time and conditions to make us all pay for our
arrogance.

I wonder just what the effects from 7,000,000,000 people will
have on the up and coming next ice age which has never had all
that extra input to deal with in previous ages, unless the
dinosaurs had multi-mega conglomerates and freely and
unfettered ways of polluting the planet to save themselves a few
paltry bucks for their next trip to the strip club.

Instead of trying to “plug” the leaking oil pipe
why not try a different approach? Place a larger
pipe over the one that is leaking, seal it, and
re-direct the oil into a tanker. It would save
the oil and the environment. Those great minds
at BP couldn’t figure that out?

If u believe the FBI, CIA, & the major war & energy conglomerates give a poop about america’s welfare & longevity w/clean air & a life worth living- Think Again. This is truly a country in self-destruct w/the ethics & morality in the toilet- a nation incapable!
Where do u run?
Better dig-in & become as self-sustaining as possible as ‘the american dream’ siphons down the drain.
A Dream Drained Dry!

“...Courtesy of BP and the Federal Government.” The sign says. What short memory Americans have. For thirty years most Americans have demanded Gilded Age style lassiez faire economics- the hands off philosophy made famous by the Reagan inanity- ” Government is the problem, not the solution.” It’s been all New Federalism, and privatization and deregulation for decades now. When you deregulate, deneuter and defang agencies like the SEC and the EPA, and rely instead on the Corporations themselves to do the right thing- these disasters are what we will get.

Actually, after just watching a TED presentation about the condition of our oceans
and the wastefulness of shrimp fishing,(much carnage of other species for a few
shrimp), I wonder if maybe these fisherman should reevaluate their impact on the
planet too. (As should we all)

May was a very fast pace month. We had the Democrat Kabuki act of SEC vs. Goldman; the worlds greatest fraud where no one gives back the money or goes to jail. Next, the President and the Democrats blocked the full auditing the Federal Reserve. It was no accident that the terrorist stock market crash on May 7 Th was a command performance to threaten Senators. Than, there is the issue of financial reform, that is blocked by the Republicans. The oil terrorist attack was also not by accident, and is designed to bankrupt the US and be a distraction from reform and to show the Senators who is boss. The NWO transition President is doing great and the propagandized American people are as dumb as ever. The overthrow of the US government into the New World Order is right on schedule.
All of you anti-American, stupid bastards who were behind Greed, Multinational Corporations, Globalization and “Free (sic) Trade” are the ones to blame. You see, we are the shit bags that the rest of the world sees us as; it is not just our government. It is the ignorant, brainwashed, apathetic Americans who made for their own demise and now we are faced with a hundred year revolution; Americans really don’t deserve any better.

This country has become a clusterfuck of special interest! If I wasn’t a seasoned citizen, I would go to a country that gives a fuck about it’s citizens!

Obama had the chance to turn things around, but, he opted to hang with the cocksuckers who sign the big checks! Vote for a Republican? ROFLMAO! They will talk shit about small government and terrorism, while continuing the same old, same old!

Seriously now, there is a huge Gulf of No-Access between the President and his people, filled with
corporations spilling dirty money into the water.
It is impossible for the president to recognize his people because the corporations won’t allow him to see anything but themselves and their money. He is
held captive as surely as any Guantanamo prisoner, and he, along with all the rest of us, is in danger of being tortured to death as “non-combatant collateral damage”. Our prison is run by a group of private contractors calling themselves “Free Enterprise Internatioinal.” Hello!

We never anticipated that America with its world leading technology is not prepared for such a disaster.
This brings science fiction inti reality.
What if we,the inhabitant of this planet ,are attacked by aliens from the ouiter space .Having said that ,we commend the technological advances in other fields in the US .
Hope mankind pays more attentions to the disasters facing us instead of all the conflicts and wars and finally the gigantic and astronomical budgets for military spendings.

I didn’t think a disaster the magnitude of the 9/11 supposed
terrorist attack would end up a wash and cover up of those
really responsible and I have that same creepy corporate feeling
the same will happen here

For the past month, Americans have watched with
growing horror as a huge leak on a BP oil rig has
poured millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of
Mexico. As I wrote on Sunday in the Week in Review
section of The Times, there is also shock that
technology has so far not been able to control it.

But it is important to remember that this mammoth
polluting event, so extraordinary here, is not so
unusual in some parts of the world. In an article
published on Sunday in The Guardian of London, John
Vidal, the paper’s environment editor, movingly
recalls a trip to the Niger Delta a few years ago,
where he literally swam in “pools of light Nigerian
crude.”

A network of decades-old pipes and oil extraction
equipment in the delta has been plagued by serious
leaks and spills. “More oil is spilled from the
delta’s network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations
and oil platforms every year than has been lost in
the Gulf of Mexico,” he writes.

O.K., Nigeria may seem far away to most Americans. So
what does this have to do with us?

Well, consider this: Nigeria ranks fifth among the
nations supplying crude oil exports to the United
States. Companies that drill in the Niger delta
include Shell and Exxon.

Here in the United States, people express outrage at
BP’s actions in the gulf and demand that the oil
giant behave responsibly in our waters. But should
they also insist that oil companies behave well in
the developing countries where their oil comes from?
After all, many people insist on “fair trade” coffee
and non-sweatshop clothing.

One more excerpt from Mr. Vidal’s fascinating
article: “If this gulf accident had happened in
Nigeria, neither the government nor the company would
have paid much attention,” said the writer Ben Ikari,
a member of the Ogoni people. “This kind of spill
happens all the time in the delta.”

A previous version of this post indicated that BP
still drills in the Niger Delta. It does not. Quoting
the article in The Guardian, it also indicated that
Nigeria supplies 40 percent of the crude oil imported
by the United States. The actual figure is 8 percent,
according to the most recent data, from March.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused headlines
around the world, yet the people who live in the
Niger delta have had to live with environmental
catastrophes for decades

On 1 May this year a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in
the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than a million
gallons into the delta over seven days before the
leak was stopped. Local people demonstrated against
the company but say they were attacked by security
guards. Community leaders are now demanding $1bn in
compensation for the illness and loss of livelihood
they suffered. Few expect they will succeed. In the
meantime, thick balls of tar are being washed up
along the coast.

Within days of the Ibeno spill, thousands of barrels
of oil were spilled when the nearby Shell Trans Niger
pipeline was attacked by rebels. A few days after
that, a large oil slick was found floating on Lake
Adibawa in Bayelsa state and another in Ogoniland.
“We are faced with incessantoil spills from rusty
pipes, some of which are 40 years old,” said Bonny
Otavie, a Bayelsa MP.

This point was backed by Williams Mkpa, a community
leader in Ibeno: “Oil companies do not value our
life; they want us to all die. In the past two years,
we have experienced 10 oil spills and fishermen can
no longer sustain their families. It is not
tolerable.”

With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of
all the crude the United States imports and is the
world capital of oil pollution. Life expectancy in
its rural communities, half of which have no access
to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40
years over the past two generations. Locals blame the
oil that pollutes their land and can scarcely believe
the contrast with the steps taken by BP and the US
government to try to stop the Gulf oil leak and to
protect the Louisiana shoreline from pollution.

The danger here with focusing so strongly on BP, is
that other oil corporations that do damage around the
world are ignored, that Halliburton and Transocean
are ignored. And this will divert attention away from
the wider environmental and global disasters. As one
Nigerian woman said, this BP spill is nothing
compared with Chevron’s destruction of the Niger
Delta, where they literally get away with atrocities
worse than BP. At least BP is in the spotlight, at
least there are calls for it to be criminally
investigated. But, this disaster should not just be
about BP but about BIG OIL in general.

The Federal Agencies, in particular DOE, whine that they can do nothing to stop the oil flow because they know nothing, is not acceptable. Their assumption that if they no nothing about stopping the oil flow, than no one else could possible know anything, is also invalid and a cover-up of solutions.
BP is lying when they state that the relief bore near the original bore will be a “fix” for the out of control wellhead. The relief bore will only slow down the flow, if any, and the wellhead will still be out of control and gushing gas and oil (about 95,000 bpd). The wellhead may never be sealed completely. The BP “plan”, if you want to call it a “plan”, is ecological suicide and is completely unacceptable.
Why are there no Stop the Oil Flow Task Force of FBI, scientist, engineers, private contractors, Navy and corps of Army Engineers; are the politicians afraid that they will interfere with the failed operations of BP with new solutions? I will bet that there are at least 100 practical science solutions in the suggestion box of BP to permanently stop the flow of oil at the wellhead that could be implemented tomorrow. BP refuses to implement real solutions, and threatens and defies government with refusing to cooperate and keeping secrets of the actual damage. The government is afraid and refuses to interfere; so who is going to stop the flow of oil? We need an independent Stop the Oil Flow Task Force today to stop the flow of oil tomorrow!
Why is there only one small tanker on site sucking up and separating the oil? Unlawful dispersants are used at the well head site instead of sucking the pool of oil into tankers. The illegal dispersants have hid the oil (and the liability) in massive plumes that are floating away underwater. Why are there no tankers following the plumes around and sucking up and separating the oil?
Why, because there is no profit in it and no planning or budget for a spill; Nature can heal herself and hide the spilled oil for BP! BP stands for “Beyond Prosecution” and will only act for profit or to cover-up evidence of damage to limit liability.
BP claims they do not have the technology to control the flow or to suck up and separate the mass amount of oil in the water. They have the technology but do not have recovery tankers rigged because they believe that a budget for control and recovery technology is a waste of profit. If BP had the clean-up and control technology rigged on their tankers they would have to make more effort, which will cost more money. If they have only one tanker rigged for recovery, there is less expense and they will not have to spend as much money in effort to clean up the spill. What clean-up effort citizens perform is covered in BP’s limited liability so they will only pay a fraction of the actual damage by doing nothing. It is far cheaper to use unlawful dispersants and buy politicians than to be prepared for a spill.
Obama is the “transition” President of the New World Order and is in the bag along with the Treasonous 111 Congress. By design, our Democracy has totally collapsed. The Totalitarian World Banksters and Big Oil are in charge and world chaos, governance, and control is their agenda.
We have stood by during the American economic genocide with hope for Democracy. We can not stand by with hope and trust as Big Oil commits unabated ecological genocide against the American people and our country. We need to fight back today and demand that an independent Stop the Oil Flow Task Force be formed today to stop the flow of oil tomorrow!

BP is committing a holocaust against the fishermen, fish, dolphins, turtles, many species, the marshes, & the beaches. What if hurricanes carry oily water? What will happen in the oily rain of a hurricane? How many fires will there be hundreds of miles away from the coast? Toxic fires!
Hayward wants his life back? I will give him his life back completely destitute & in jail forever for all the lives he took animal & human.
As for anyone that lost on BP investments; what did you expect for your Drill Baby Drill attitude toward nature & the truth?

What do you expect from a corporatocrisy? That’s right, we no longer live in a republic governed by democracy regardless of what our Constitution says. By the way, the Supreme Court recently ruled that corporations have freedom of speech. What? This whole mess has been going on for quite a while. I suffer from Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus, which was adequately treated with animal derived insulin since it’s discovery in 1921. But Eli Lilly engineered BSA cloned insulin which is a cheaply made, defective substitute for real insulin in 1980. Animal derived insulin will last until the vial is fully injected if it is stored in the refrigerator when not in use. But the cloned garbage lasts for me only 21 days, which is less than 1/2 of the vial before it’s useless and the corporation didn’t learn this until after 1989, where they said it lasts for 28 days. But Eli Lilly didn’t bother to inform medical doctors but only the pharmacies. The product is so bad that it was not created for the individuals who cannot produce their own insulin. That’s because Type 1 diabetics are only 10% of the diabetic population, so why should Eli Lilly want to create a supposedly create a superior insulin product when all they wanted to do was increase their profits. I listened to Sidney Turel, the former CEO of Eli Lilly, in a speech on CSPAN in June of 2004, describe how he, the current CEO and the next executive in the chain of command “volunteered” in George W. Bush’s white house to learn how to get laws passed that they wanted passed. Then in 2005, all animal derived insulins were removed from the U.S. market though their phase 2 clinical trials demonstrated a 30% adverse reaction among Type 1 diabetics. The phase 1 clinical trials were only performed on Type 2 diabetics and non-diabetics in 1980.

So it’s more of the same: Don’t protect the people if it’s going to hurt the bottom line. Just more greed, regardless of whether it’s BP, Transocean, Halliburton or Eli Lilly. I presume that other individuals in our society can testify about the same kind of abuse by all the corporate powers that actually benefit from our government.

The moment I heard about the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico I knew it was going to be an unprecedented disaster. We might as well have poured oil around the Galapagos Islands. I just don’t understand why the Obama administration did not know, or at least why they acted like it was just one of those things. Another problem to add to the morning list of to-do’s. Make a statement, tell BP to clean it up and move on. I felt nothing coming from the White House that indicated that this was a long term catastrophe—decades maybe longer.

No, we don’t need Obama to act like a father figure who will make things all better, but what we do need is someone who gets things in motion, yesterday, and who will bear down on “evil-doers.” Someone who is talking to everyone who knows anything about oil rigs, oil spills, environmental clean-up and maybe most importantly, alternative energy. Someone who defines the problem and its urgency, sets the debate, sets the agenda and inspires people to step up and put their heads together to find solutions. Obama always seems to be behind the curve and only reacts when enough people start to criticize. That’s not really leadership. I think there are a lot of smart people in the U.S. with a lot of good ideas who want to help, but alas, they are never called upon. Just as Obama tamped down and turned his back on the youthful and progressive energy of the campaign and retreated to the insiders club after elected, he never asked his supporters to keep the hope/change/progress energy alive. On the contrary, he tamped it down lest they insult the insurance companies and screw up his behind the scenes dealings with them. Then, at election time he tries to reclaim that energy. Uh Uh, not how it works.

While he’s out there showing conservatives how tough he is on terrorists, and in the process bombing innocent civilians, there are people right here—in the name of big bankers, insurance industry CEO’s and oil, coal and gas barons, to name a few—doing as much or more harm to the U.S. and its citizenry, but who merely seem to warrant slaps on the wrists because somehow this behavior is more accepted, just part of doing business and the rest of the nonsense they spew.

How is it that an oil company could possibly have the legal right to someone’s clothing once they are sick and in the hospital—not even company owned protective clothing as they refuse to supply those?? There is something really messed up in that.

Criminal prosecutions by the Obama administration? I’ll believe that when I see it. This administration is not only prosecution shy, but investigation shy. Perhaps if they had looked into the illegal practices of the previous administration, one of which was Dick Cheyney’s dealings with the oil companies and his energy policy, they would have seen this coming. But hey, that would be asking politicians to take a moral stand and in 21st century American politics never the twain shall meet.

I wonder how many of those Gulf fisherman it takes to make as much money as
T. Hayward, $4.5 million. Well if my vote counts, I vote for food over fuel. The
President is in a tight spot because if he pulls out of the war, the US looses the
planned oil pipeline across the Middle East, and if he keeps drilling he risks not
having this oil. The US has never had the conversation about what happens
when we no longer have the oil because it will probably make a greedy society
very upset. However it is still better to be honest and let the people be what
they are and take however long they need to adjust as opposed to destroying
the food base and killing each other for something that will probably not last
more than another generation. The sooner we face the hardships and
devastation, the sooner adjustments can be made. As a side note I feel more
informed this year from following up on Amy Goodman’s stories on Democracy
Now than I have in my whole life.

Also locking people up in solitaire for 8 yrs. is torture and like the old middle
ages with the dungeons, which is what the US has done to a man who went to
Afghanistan with his family just like Greg Mortenson (author of “3 Cups of Tea”
that the Vice President loves) to help dig water wells. The US was handing out
money to bounty hunters to bring in strangers & Shaker Aamer was turned in
to the US military with his friend Mr. Beggs. Well the men’s families are UK
citizens and they returned to the UK, while there husbands were taken to
Guantanamo. Mr. Beggs has been touring the UK revealing the much
miss quoted corrected statement of New York Times about Victims of Guantanamo
being violent (so very few have ever been and even though they have a rt to be better are not) and he is also showing the film every RESPONSIBLE US & UK
citizen should see, Outside the Law; where Mr. Beggs campaigns for his friend
that he was with the total time in Afghanistan, but who is still kept as
propoganda in Guantanamo even though both of them were cleared to leave. SHAKER AAMER WAS CLEARED in
2007. Write to the Pres., Senator and Congressman. I hope my children never loose their right to a trial if they go to study abroad, nor are arrested because they are foreigners and without any evidence of wrong doing are locked up for nearly a decade in complete solitaire. The congressman and
letters can be found at wanacare.ning.com and more information can also be
found on nogitmos.org or andyworthington.co.uk

A disgusting tail of greed and what it can do, now not at
your MSM, this will be a cover up like all the rest. Well
if everyone gets sick and dies from the clean up, then
there will be nobody left to sue BP! What a plan!